Nov 22 Review: The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

I’m crying. That should be an indication of my feelings toward this book. If actual words are needed, I would say that this book was beautiful, emotional and for lack of better descriptive words great. To be honest, I was not sure how I would feel about this book at first. This was my first book by Nicola Yoon. My friend had mentioned that her book, Everything Everything, was good, however, it felt very unrealistic and a little disappointing. So I went into this book with really low expectations, and I expected everything to feel rushed, unrealistic, and super instalove since I assumed that the book would be taken place in a day. I was only right about one thing. The book did take place in a day. I was wrong about everything else.

This book was every bit of beautiful as it was heartbreaking. I was not expecting this book to impact me in the way that it did. I felt all the emotions.

This is not your average cutesy YA love story. There are so many tough subjects (prejudice, deportation, etc..) involved here. To give a clear glimpse of what is going on in here- the main character, Natasha, and her family are being deported back to Jamaica in 12 hours. Natasha’s whole life is about to change because of her father’s mistake.

Natasha so desperately wants to stay in the United States so she goes on a mission to make that possible. While on her mission, she meets Daniel. Like Natasha, his life is far from perfect.

This was mentioned earlier, but everything in this book happens in a day. Which was amazing because so much stuff happened and there was so much development-romantic and friendship- between the two main characters. Everything was paced well and nothing was overwhelming or rushed.

I am in awe with how much depth this story had. It really pulled at my heartstrings because you could feel Natasha’s emotions and strong desire to stay in the United States. And you could also feel Daniel’s pain surrounding his relationship with his brother as well as his parents. It very much felt raw and was explained very well so it all made sense.

Characters

I admired Natasha. She was such a great main character and you can’t help but root for her. You want her to get her happy ending because she deserves it. Her POV was interesting and stood out because of her thought process. Natasha is very much a fan of science and numbers. She is a very rational person. There was a correlation between her inter monologue and her speaking voice. Everything felt connected.

Daniel was amazing as well. He was a dreamer. I really enjoyed that both of these characters were extremely different but somehow worked well together. The chemistry was very much alive. They were adorable. And it was an added bonus to actually see them bond and develop this strong relationship in less than 12 hours. They really get to know each other in the limited time that they have.

Their love story did not feel as instalove as I thought it would be. I think Daniel explained it well when he said something along the lines of that it was not love at first sight, however, it felt like he could see himself falling in love with her.

I think that it is worth mentioning here, that there were also POVs of other characters in this book. I found that interesting because they were not the main focus, however, their story somehow as connected to Daniel and Natasha and it needed to be included. It worked very well and did not take away from the two main characters. Also, it added extra emotional scenes especially Irene’s POV.

Final Analysis

The Sun is Also a Star is about many important subjects including fate, destiny, however, the one that stood out the most is the overlying theme of hope. It was definitely an emotional and beautiful read and is an important story that needs to be told.